Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Nuisance Calls

Tulip Siddiq: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many complaints concerning (a) automated and (b) live telesales calls were received by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in 2016-17; how many fines were issued by the ICO against such offending companies in 2016-17; and how many of those fines were for the maximum possible amount.

Matt Hancock: In the period from January 2016 to December 2016, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) received (a) 71,192 complaints concerning automated calls and (b) 63,636 complaints concerning live telesales calls.In the same period, 22 monetary penalties were issued by the ICO against organisations for breaches of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. No organisation was fined the maximum monetary penalty of £500,000 by the ICO.